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For me, my love of debate is inextricably tied to a life that I've led of always moving countries. I had to move from South Korea to Australia as an eight-year-old without really speaking English. And I quickly found the hardest part of crossing language lines, of cultural lines was disagreements where people tend to be more disruptive to interrupt, to speed up and slow down. In response to all that, I resolved to be very agreeable in the way in which I presented at school, and to keep my thoughts to myself. The thing that changed that was I joined the debate team off the strength of one promise, which was that in debate, when one person speaks, no one else does.

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For me, / my love of debate / is inextricably tied / to a life that I've led of always moving countries. / I had to move from South Korea to Australia as an eight-year-old / without really speaking English. / And I quickly found / the hardest part of / crossing language lines, / of cultural lines was // disagreements / where people tend / to be more disruptive / to interrupt, / to speed up / and slow down. / In response to all that, / I resolved to / be very agreeable / in the way in which I presented at school, / and to / keep my thoughts / to myself. / The thing that changed that / was / I joined the debate team / off the strength of / one promise, / which was that in debate, / when one person speaks, / no one else does. //

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And to someone who had been interrupted and spun out of conversation, that sounded to me like a kind of salvation. If intelligence is the ability to respond to any argument, wisdom lies in knowing which arguments to respond to, and which parts of an argument to respond to. Arguments are easy to start and hard to end because there are any number of differences between two people. And unless you are careful to say, "We're having this disagreement at this moment and not all the other disagreements we could be having," all of the differences between two people can start flooding in, and the argument becomes this unruly mass where any of the potential sources of conflict can come to the fore, and you're not making progress on any given one.

Let's follow Bo Seo...

And to someone who had been / interrupted / and spun out of conversation, / that sounded to me like a kind of salvation. // If / intelligence is the / ability to respond to any argument, / wisdom lies in knowing which arguments to respond to, / and which parts of an argument to respond to. / Arguments are / easy to start / and hard to end / because / there are / any number of differences between two people. / And unless you are careful to say, / "We're having this disagreement at this moment and not / all the other disagreements we could be having," / all of the differences between two people / can start flooding in, / and the argument becomes this unruly mass where any of the potential sources of conflict can come to the fore, / and you're not making progress on any given one. //